Florian Schmaltz

Florian Schmaltz is the Research Program Coordinator of the Research Program History of the Max Planck Society (Forschungsprogramm Geschichte der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft).

The Research Program is investigating the history of the Max Planck Society based on primary research and its scientific historical contexts. It encompasses the history of the Society as such as well as its individual institutions including e.g. their academic programs and working methods, structures and results, successes and failures, as well as their links to economy, society, politics and culture.

In his research Florian Schmaltz focuses on the historical epistemology of scientific institutions. He investigates the history of the relations between science, the military, and industry.

Besides the history of the Max Planck Society his current work is committed to an institutional study focusing on research in fluid dynamics at the Aerodynamic Research Establishment (Aerodynamische Versuchsanstalt - AVA) in Göttingen and its predecessor organizations (1907–1950). His research topics have included the history of chemical warfare research, the IG Farben trust in the Nazi era, its factory and concentration camp at Auschwitz, criminal human experimentation in German concentration camps and the history of aeronautical research in the 20th century.

He received his MA at the Free University of Berlin in 2000 and subsequently worked as doctoral candidate in the research program of the Presidential Commission of the Max Planck Society on the "History of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society in National Socialism" (2000–2004). He received his doctor' degree at the University of Bremen in 2004. His dissertation was entitled: Kampfstoff-Forschung im Nationalsozialismus. Zur Kooperation von Kaiser-Wilhelm-Instituten, Militär und Industrie (Chemical Warfare Research in National Socialism: The Cooperation of Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes, Military and Industry). Subsequently, he was a research fellow in the History of Science Working Group at the Historical Department of the Goethe University Frankfurt (2004–2009), Scholar in Residence at the Research Institute of the Deutsches Museum in Munich (2010) and Research Assistant at the University Regensburg (2011).

Schmaltz, F. (submitted). Aeronautical research under Nazi occupation in Paris: the Aerodynamische Versuchsanstalt Göttingen and the mobilisation of resources, french scientists and engineers, 1940-1944.

Schmaltz, F. (2010). Aerodynamics and Flutter Research at the Nationaal Luchtvaartlaboratorium (NLL) in Amsterdam under Nazi Occupation (1940-1944). In Mini-Workshop: History of Mathematics in Germany, 1920-1960 (pp. 117-119). Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut Oberwolfach.